But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are not to think—­whatever I may have written or implied—­that I lean either to the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world through darkness instead of light, and speaks of it wailingly.  Now, may God forbid that it should be so with me.  I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons (as I sometimes say and oftener feel),—­the wisdom of cheerfulness—­and the duty of social intercourse.  Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude in society; it has been a wholesome and not unnatural reaction.  And altogether, I may say that the earth looks the brighter to me in proportion to my own deprivations.  The laburnum trees and rose trees are plucked up by the roots—­but the sunshine is in their places, and the root of the sunshine is above the storms.  What we call Life is a condition of the soul, and the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault.  These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.

And I do like to hear testimonies like yours, to happiness, and I feel it to be a testimony of a higher sort than the obvious one.  Still, it is obvious too that you have been spared, up to this time, the great natural afflictions, against which we are nearly all called, sooner or later, to struggle and wrestle—­or your step would not be ‘on the stair’ quite so lightly.  And so, we turn to you, dear Mr. Browning, for comfort and gentle spiriting!  Remember that as you owe your unscathed joy to God, you should pay it back to His world.  And I thank you for some of it already.

Also, writing as from friend to friend—­as you say rightly that we are—­I ought to confess that of one class of griefs (which has been called too the bitterest), I know as little as you.  The cruelty of the world, and the treason of it—­the unworthiness of the dearest; of these griefs I have scanty knowledge.  It seems to me from my personal experience that there is kindness everywhere in different proportions, and more goodness and tenderheartedness than we read of in the moralists.  People have been kind to me, even without understanding me, and pitiful to me, without approving of me:—­nay, have not the very critics tamed their beardom for me, and roared delicately as sucking doves, on behalf of me?  I have no harm to say of your world, though I am not of it, as you see.  And I have the cream of it in your friendship, and a little more, and I do not envy much the milkers of the cows.

How kind you are!—­how kindly and gently you speak to me!  Some things you say are very touching, and some, surprising; and although I am aware that you unconsciously exaggerate what I can be to you, yet it is delightful to be broad awake and think of you as my friend.

May God bless you!

Faithfully yours,